Court Will Decide Gay Marriage on Its Own Terms

“The first page of a petition seeking Supreme Court review is the most important. It sets out the ‘question presented,’ the one the court will answer if it takes the case,” the New York Times reports.

“The justices do not ordinarily tinker with the wording of those questions. But on Friday something unusual happened: In agreeing to hear four same-sex marriage cases, the court framed for itself the issues it would address.”

Rick Hasen: “The framing of these questions apparently differ from the way the questions were presented in all of the petitions, which raises the question of why were they rewritten… This strikes me as the handiwork of the Chief Justice, perhaps looking for a way to have as narrow a win for same sex couples as it is possible to achieve.”